It is in our interest but also that of the Russians

It is also relentless that one of these "men-shouldered" leading the Russian State "arbitrary, paranoid, corrupt and confiscatory." A book exciting and freezing at the time, useful for all those, many since the military intervention in Georgia this summer, seeking to understand the functioning of the Kremlin. Laure Mandeville, correspondent for the "Figaro" in Moscow for two decades, book here a sum documented, fed to interviews of top down the social scale, on the "criminalization of the Russian State". The finding is terrible. Any contractor may be landed a man in uniform him declaring a sly air: "and so you believed you owner of this company." Justice or the tax authorities are used to confiscate such business, send to prison such inappropriate voices on the convenient accusation of "extremism". In short, the rule of law is seen as "faltering ideology imposed by the West", emphasize surprisingly Frank close to Putin. As the Russians have been long accustomed to accommodate arbitrary. And the Kremlin has engulfed all balances, judicial, legislative, media, local (regional governors are elected). Any criticism is accused of emanate from a "Jackal financed by abroad" and television orchestrate a cult of personality of Vladimir Putin. Is, alongside the shy Dimitri Medvedev and the fallen oligarch, former boss of Yukos, Khodorkovsky Mikhael, the central figure of this book reads like a novel, a farce or a tragedy Greek.

Unpleasant aftermath

A tragedy for us at the forefront, warns the author because, not content to destabilize its neighbors financing secessionist movements, the Kremlin is seeking to take control of the European gas pipelines to impose its views energy pressures kicked. This is also not a chance if he invaded the Georgia guilty to build a pipeline bypassing the Russia.

After a historical review on the errors of the young reformers surrounding Boris Eltsine, manipulated by the Communist nomenklatura in the large "oligarchic predation" 1990s, the book describes a pugnacious feather "predation tchékiste" of the 2000s (the Chekist was the Bolshevik ancestor of the KGB, now FSB). This organization which has spied, terrorized and murdered millions of Russians is honored today as a symbol of the continuity of the State and celebrated every year, on 20 December! To divert the frustration of the forgotten of the growth, the FSB has tinkered a national-bureaucratic ideology that rehabilitate Stalin, cultivates the nostalgia of the empire and seeks enemies abroad.

This indictment should annoy the supporters of enlightened despotism, a French passion for Voltaire, and want, right as on the left to see in Putin a Colbert or one of de Gaulle, constituting a useful counterweight to the United States and straightening his country kicked of centralization and best interests of the State. Nothing is further from the truth, according to Laure Mandeville. Clashes between clans of the FSB are just as dangerous as the institutional confusion going under Yeltsin. Prosperity is due primarily to the oil and very concentrated. Laure Mandeville do not dig the paradox of a doubling in eight years of the average standard of living of Russians despite the absence of rule of law. It is however correct to point out that, in the absence of productive investment, the country is preparing unpleasant aftermath. The Russian economy has very few SMEs and out of raw materials, the Russia did exports to Europe not only tiny Iceland.

Laure Mandeville may resolve to the cliché about the Russians 'unfit for democracy. " She founded some hope in this middle-class voyage, compares, surfing the Net, even if it must be recognized that, for the moment, it has "feet to the West but the head in the USSR" and called the Western countries to show firmness against the Russian regime. "It is in our interest, but also that of the Russians."